TAMPA, Fla. — US Northern Command is standing up a partnership dubbed Nordic Bridge to enhance collaboration between multiple US commands while confronting Arctic security concerns, Gen. Gregory Guillot said today.
“I just returned a week or so ago from meeting with some other partners in EUCOM [US European Command] and establishing what we’re calling the Nordic Bridge,” Guillot, commander of NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told an audience at the annual SOF Week exposition. He added that it will “tie together” NORTHCOM, NORAD, EUCOM and US Special Operations Command Europe.
Though Guillot didn’t provide many details on the new partnership, he said as the Arctic region is becoming increasingly vital in protecting the homeland, he wants to ensure the US has “the right amount of presence up there.” He said Nordic Bridge will help make sure the other commands work together to make sure they aren’t sending a “disproportionate amount of force” to the region — or failing to send anyone at all.
“The goal is always to defend as far away from the homeland as we can, and SOF [Special Operations Forces] is probably the perfect mechanism to do that,” Guillot said. Guillot said he envisions such forces “primarily focused on Alaska” when it comes to the Arctic region.
The US wouldn’t be alone in the effort, he said, noting that last year NORTHCOM “took it a step further” and included Danish SOF operators in such exercises like Noble Defender as a result of NORTHCOM moving Greenland into its area of responsibility.
“That’s working really well. Nothing but praise for those partners, and the harsh environment that they operate in, but they do it really well,” Guillot said of the recent exercises. (He did not address controversial comments from the Trump administration about potentially claiming Greenland as US territory.)
Learning from militaries with extensive experience in the Arctic environment will be key, according to SOCOM Commander Adm. Frank Bradley.
“If you want to know something about Arctic operations, find the best Arctic operators in the world, you don’t come to Tampa to find those,” Bradley told the audience earlier today. “You go to the experts, you go to where they live, in the high north, and it is that local knowledge, that local and regional expertise, that diversity of perspectives that we bring together, that is so critical in being able to form a powerful alliance.”
